How Guys Relate On A Friday Night

It's Friday and yes I am in one of those moods. Time to have a little fun. Hope you won't mind.

I won't deny that my book, The Ripple Effect, has done exceptionally well in the female demographic. In fact, the ratio of women to men who have purchased the book is easily 4 to 1.

Women get it. Women understand how important building and strengthening relationships is to their personal and professional lives. Women appreciate the intricate nature of having a strategy to finding and nurturing connection points. Guys on the other hand.....well....

It's not that men don't get these things. It's just different. Usually if we can't fish it, hunt it or kill it with a bat, and grunt about it afterwards while we share a frosty cold one, then something is wrong.

No with guys it's often totally different. Guys don't build relationships, they bond...beer is usually a requirement. Guys don't nurture but we will say "COOL!" when one of us bleeds. We won't notice what label another guy is wearing because, well that would just be plain weird. Guys don't care what their hair looks like around the other guys. But again, if you lose some hair in huge clumps during some "grand plan" that mysteriously goes awry, again we will say "awesome!" Again, beer or some alcoholic stimulant is usually a must have.

So I received a call from a buddy this past week which illustrates my point.

"Hey Harper, what's up?" (Men speak for how are you) "You know how you are always talking about that relationship building stuff," he asked sternly. (you mean what I do for a living, umm yes?) "We were all thinking we should be doing some of that." (impressive) "But only our way!" (uh oh...but I am in!) We killed some stuff and found a place "way out" to have a big 'ol fire." (dead animals over an open pit in the middle of some field somewhere...I am absolutely in!) "We can get some big coolers and throw a 'buncha' beer on ice, pig out and swap some stories." (heaven party of one!)

I will go out on a limb her ladies and tell you that stories aren't about our lives or what makes us tick. They usually revolve around who could beat who in a fist fight or what we would do if we met a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. Or how we all could have dated Cindy Crawford and/or once knew Eva Longoria. It will always cover some element of sports and no matter how the conversation goes, it will inevitably be followed by some rude, crude and socially unacceptable behavior. Hence why I think these things happen in a "field" far, far way from anyone who could take pictures or retell a story come Monday.

Yep guys relate differently alright. But we do relate in the end.

What can I say, it's Friday, the weather has turned a bit chilly here and some good old Texas BBQ (just hope it isn't Possum and Armadillo), beer and b.s.'ing with the boys under the stars sounds like a perfect way to spend a Friday night.

Enjoy your weekend my friends and as always....

Ripple On!!!

Steve